COUNCILLORS this week granted Nightingale Hall Farm permission to build a new control room despite strong protests from Green councillors.

After a lengthy debate, the latest application from Fats & Proteins Ltd split the vote 50-50 and was carried by the casting vote of chairman, Cllr Keith Budden.

The committee had been advised by officers that if they threw out the application the authority would almost certainly lose an appeal and be liable for compensation.

Green councillor Emily Heath was dismayed by the decision and said: "I am disappointed that other councillors have ignored the massive public opposition to continued development at this site and have not got the guts to stand up to a company, which causes so much misery for local people for fear of the costs of an appeal."

Cllr Jon Barry added "The council has a policy to relocate NHF but its not worth the paper its written on if we allow them to invest more and more in this inappropriate site and dig themselves in deeper. The relocation strategy must be a proactive one with a definite timescale for completion. In the mean time, all development on the site should be suspended and Fats & Proteins UK Ltd should be prosecuted every time they break the law with smell incidents, black smoke emissions, noisy lorries at night and dangerous road spillages."

Green councillors this week wrote to the chief environmental health officer asking exactly what the council is doing to relocate the plant and asking that they now agree to resident's demands to curb black smoke from the chimney and ban lorries to and from the plant between 10pm and 7am in line with the Environmental Protection Act and EU noise legislation.

Chairman Cllr Budden said he was all for the relocation of Nightingale Hall Farm, sooner rather than later, but added: "I opposed the application for the chimney but we lost the appeal and to oppose this ancilliary building would be seen as petty. We'd be certain to lose another appeal which would have left us open to compensation and I couldn't bring myself to throw the council's money away."

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